In a battle of two of Tennessee’s top high school girls basketball teams, the Gatlinburg-Pittman Highlanders saw their impressive 5-game winning streak come to an end at the hands of the Loretto Mustangs in a 55-52 thriller.
Gatlinburg-Pittman entered the matchup riding high off their regular season success with a 34-3 record, but ran into a red-hot Loretto squad that has now won 8 straight games to improve to 29-3 on the year.
In a major upset at the SEC Tournament, the Mississippi State Bulldogs knocked off the #5 ranked Tennessee Volunteers 73-56 in the quarterfinals on Friday. The Bulldogs raced out to a huge 38-19 halftime lead and never looked back, weathering a second half Tennessee run to secure the victory.
Senior guards Cameron Matthews and Josh Hubbard led the way for Mississippi State, each scoring 18 points on an efficient shooting night.
Starkville, MS - In a battle of SEC basketball heavyweights, Mississippi State’s Dalton Knecht put on an offensive clinic, scoring 23 points, but it wasn’t quite enough as Tennessee used a furious second-half rally to take down the Bulldogs 72-68 on Thursday night.
Knecht was unconscious in the first half, knocking down six three-pointers to stake Mississippi State to a 45-28 halftime lead. The senior guard could not miss, hitting tough contested shots and finding himself wide open thanks to crisp ball movement from his teammates.
